


To Lead a Team

by BooksBabiesAndCats



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2020-10-10 11:04:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20526980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BooksBabiesAndCats/pseuds/BooksBabiesAndCats
Summary: A reflective piece featuring Jack taking care of his team's emotional needs, in a very Jack manner.





	To Lead a Team

Jack has always been... dominant. It's part of how he runs the team, it's part of how he is. (He'd let the right kind of Doctor take a look at that, but in the meantime... he's Captain Jack Harkness, and he calls the shots.)

Owen is the first to discover that that stretches further than directing them in the field. He makes a mistake, a small but serious one, and people die, and he's left sitting in his autopsy room, face in his palms, rubbing weary eyes as he tries to memorise, tries to learn, tries to be sure this won't happen again, tries to make it worth something and not just a total bollocksed up disaster.

And the Captain walks in, and his hand is warm on Owen's shoulder, and his eyes hold the weight of the mistake as heavily as Owen's (and isn't that just so very Jack, carrying his team's mistakes as his own) and somehow the doctor is sliding to his knees in front of him.

Before the embarrassment can fully kick in (murmuring apologies and mentioning words like inappropriate), that warm, callused hand cups the side of his face, thumb resting under his eye, where the contacts feel sticky from overuse, and he's nuzzling into the touch. The Captain's voice rumbles authoritatively and Owen finds himself hurrying to obey, to strip off his clothes (and the t-shirt tangles in the spenser under it and he whines).

Jack stops him. Tells him to slow down. To think about every action. Owen knows he isn't just talking about now.

Nude and shaking from a heady mix of arousal, guilt, and nerves, he kneels in front of his leader. And as he follows his orders, culminating in a breathless orgasm on the steps, he feels the guilt subsiding, washed out by forceful correction.

And when he's curled up in Jack's office, wrapped in his greatcoat and drinking tea (not even complaining that it isn't coffee) and nibbling a biscuit, his thanks are declined, but the strong arms around him tighten momentarily and he feels... atonement.

Of course, Tosh finds out. She watches all the footage. Always. But the sight of Torchwood's medical professional submitting himself to their commander... she doesn't even know where she would start, and so she remains quiet, even as more footage is recorded of similar encounters (and if that footage is saved to a separate folder that sometimes goes home with her on a flash drive, well, that's her business, isn't it?).

And if she leans into Jack's casual physicality a little more than before, what of it?

Then after the Mary incident (and isn't that her luck, getting a girlfriend and she turns out to be a murderous alien), she's up late, unable to sleep. And she finds herself making her way back to Torchwood, along the steps to Jack's office.

She knocks, and he looks up from his paperwork, grinning. The grin fades when he sees her face, rising and crossing the room to her, assessing what she needs. She herself doesn't even know, but apparently he does, and as she writhes on his desk, arms hastily restrained by his suspenders as his mouth drives her wild, she gives him her climax and her hurt, and he gives her his pleasure and his approval. He doesn't mention the tears creeping from her eyes as he brings her tea, and she hides them in his shoulder, falling asleep at last.

She wakes up in her own bed, in fresh linen with a glass of water by her bedside. It's the first of many times.

Of all of them, Gwen is the most emotional, the most real and human. He's always appreciated that about her, as much as it drives him wild (emotions like that are like a treasured memory, out of reach, but a luxury to come into contact with). So when Rhys falls into the Rift and she's banging fists on his chest and wailing over his promises, his angry apologies, he doesn't know what to do.

He kisses her, harsh, unyielding, silencing, meeting emotion with deep fire, pinning her against him as she both fights and melts.

During the search, she has her days of soaring hope, and her days of crashing despair. It is on one of the despairing days (when she's sleeping under the boardroom table, unable to go home to her memories) that he brings it to her.

Buttery soft leather and silky lace, discreet fastening, and just heavy enough to remind her it's there (he's there).

She takes her clothes off, once. He covers her in his coat. Whispers not-yets and if-it's-what-you-wants. Then he holds her close and lets her cry. Kisses her forehead (always just her forehead, after that first time, or her hand, or her cheek, but never her soft, sad pout).

When they find Rhys again, he hauls off and hits Jack, once he realises why she won't take her necklace off (necklace, collar, if only she could just use the honest words for once), but it all works out somehow (faith, hope, and Ianto), because both men have come to love her and the one thing they can agree upon is that someone needs to be there to reel her back, to keep her from burning herself out.

But at the end of the day, Ianto is the one that always kneels for Jack and moans yes-sir, no-sir, harder-sir, more-sir, takes every swing of the belt and revels in it, plays every game that Jack concocts and suffers his undeserved forfeits with a smile and a whimper...

It's his gentle Welsh lilt that brings Jack back down when he's worked himself into a frenzy, when Gwen breaks the rules or when Tosh miscalculates or when Owen crosses a line (it's the memory of crossing lines himself that makes him so quick to defend them - the metal of the Cyberwoman is never far from Ianto's consciousness). It's him that brings in the pizza, that pours the coffee, that rides everywhere with Jack (and that rides Jack, everywhere).

And when the memories get too much, when Torchwood Two is his dreamland, it's Jack, unsleeping, who strokes the hair from his forehead and hums him back to sleep with marching tunes.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't posted anything in a very long time, fell out of fandom in general, and this feels like a good place to come back in. Concrit welcome.


End file.
